Referendum Reprise

What the papers and players said! The first weekend, although it took me a month to write it.

Britain has voted to leave the EU. The reason? A large section of the working class, concentrated in towns and cities that have been quietly devastated by free-market economics, decided they’d had enough.

"If you've got money, you vote in," she said, with a bracing certainty. "If you haven't got money, you vote out." We were in Collyhurst, the hard-pressed neighbourhood on the northern edge of Manchester city centre last Wednesday, and I had yet to find a remain voter.

Awesome or have I just started to listen. Brilliant powerful writing, showing a journey frommacro-economic and industrial policy via triangulation to powerlessness and growing anger. He doesn’t make a lot of it, but the MPs expenses affair, condoned bythe government and the press hounding of the MPs, (⅔ were 100% compliant)undermine the trust that electors have. In the case of Labour’s lost voters, it was the electoral strategy of triangulation.

Neither the political centre or the pro-remain left was able to explain how to offset the negative economic impact of low-skilled migration in conditions of (a) guaranteed free movement (b) permanent stagnation in Europe and (c) austerity in Britain.

What now for the radical left in Labour and beyond? [I'm writing this with 54 counts still to declare but it is clear Leave has won.] Britain has voted to leave the EU. The reason? A large section of the working class, concentrated in towns and cities that have been quietly devastated by free-market economics, decided they'd had enough.

The only way Labour can unite these culturally different groups (and geographic areas) — so clearly dramatised by the local-level results — is economic radicalism. Redistribution, well-funded public services, a revived private sector and vibrant local democracy is a common interest across both groups.

Brexit means out, don't see why myself, again an early article before the running away and before we realise that we don't know how to leave..

In the progressive half of British politics we need a plan to put our stamp on the Brexit result - and fast. We must prevent the Conservative right using the Brexit negotiations to reshape Britain into a rule-free space for corporations; we need to take control of the process whereby the rights of the citizen are redefined against those of a newly sovereign state.

This EU referendum has been the most extraordinary political event of our lifetime. Never in our history have so many people been asked to decide a big question about the nation's future. Never have so many thought so deeply, or wrestled so hard with their consciences, in an effort to come up with the right answer.

The situation worsens. It's a revolution, and like all revolutions, it will eat its own. Nobody yet knows who's going to end up with an ice-pick through their skull, but history had told us it was likely to be Boris Johnson.

The chief executive of Credit Suisse has laid the blame for the Brexit vote at the feet of Britain's "chronic lack of investment in education". Tidjane Thiam was remarking on the country's decision to leave the European Union as voted for by a majority of 52%, during a business conference in France.

You break it, you own it. That's the rule at Pottery Barn, an American high-end furniture chain store that has yet to cross the ­Atlantic. As far as the Brexit brigade is concerned, the idea hasn't yet made the journey either.

I ask what can be learned, is this an opportunity to build a better relationship. Can we define a new reciprocal subsidiarity agreement, guaranteeing local government autonomy and existence, the re-establishment of a regional/industrial fund, moves towards a common welfare policy, which in the UK would involve more direct contributions, a minimum wage to reduce in work benefits, minimum wage also to prohibit immigrants under cutting local labour, the minimum wage would need to be nearer the old wages councils with different levels for different jobs.

All this would require renegotiating the European Stabilisation agreement. But it's not impossible. Lets hope for the future.